Monopoly Night
by Peel The Avacado
Summary: During the childhoods of the Hargreeves children, there was a box hidden underneath of Diego's mattress that somehow, all seven of them kept secret for a long time. Then again, when the world is falling apart around you what feels like every day, you grow to have an affection for the simple things in life.


Monopoly Night was always a sight to behold at the Umbrella Academy. It was one of the few activities that Vanya could participate in without hindrance when they let her. They, in this instance, being her siblings alone and not their father. All of them knew that the "eccentric" billionaire would never let any of them play Monopoly. So the beat-up cardboard box underneath of Diego's mattress remained secret. It was a surprisingly well-kept secret, too, for a group of ten-year-olds.

Monopoly Nights were Wednesdays, unless circumstance got in the way. If, for instance, Ben had come up from the basement blood-soaked and shaking, clothes torn to pieces by whatever had been set upon him for the sole purpose of getting a reaction earlier in the day, they wouldn't play. They wouldn't play if anyone was missing, either, be it that Diego was supposed to be underwater until next morning, or that Klaus was going to be locked in the mausoleum for at least another few days (and they couldn't play as soon as he got back, either – not with his being covered in dirt and cobwebs and the tear tracks running down his face).

Playing Monopoly was really the only completely "normal" family activity that they did together, and even then, it wasn't that ordinary, given that its existence was kept a secret from the kids' only father figure. But it united them, gave them something to do that wasn't sitting alone in their rooms or (as the comics Allison would bring home after she started sneaking out called it) fighting crime. Something about Monopoly Nights made them feel like a family, not just a bunch of children who had been bought from mothers who never wanted them for the sole purpose of being superheroes.

Then Five left. For the first few weeks, they didn't play simply because Five wasn't there. Then they didn't play because they'd fallen into the routine of not playing. When finally Vanya had quietly suggested that they start again, it had never felt the same. Not without Five passing out marshmallow sandwiches or hopelessly giggling while at the same time trying to keep a poker face whenever he did anything he thought was good for his "strategy". Or jumping out of the room when he inevitably lost because Five was just unlucky by nature and no matter how much he planned, nothing ever seemed to add up just right for him.

The years went by, and the old rules no longer applied. If Allison wasn't playing because she had a photo shoot, that was just how it was, and the rest of them would still play. Vanya grew more distant, and for all that their relationship wasn't hanging by a thread, it also wasn't fortified with steel, and anyone with a pair of scissors can cut tulle. Luther, in classic Luther style, stopped playing altogether because he "didn't want to go behind dad's back." The only one who really attended Monopoly Nights regularly was Ben, and he would encourage the others to join as well, but in the end, it didn't end up making much of a difference.

Ben Hargreeves dies horribly, torn to bits and in immense pain. The funeral is closed casket for the simple reason of there not being much of a body, and for the less simple reason of Reginald Hargreeves beliving that it will cause less of a commotion. Of course, there would have been less of a possibility for that commotion, in general, had Hargreeves not sold tickets to Ben's funeral as one would a baseball game.

In honor of Ben's memory, Klaus suggests they play that very night. It's something they need, he says. So Diego pulls the cardboard Monopoly box from his room and the four members of the Umbrella Academy and their supposedly powerless plus-one creep up to the attic. They unpack the old game and inadvertently unpack some other things as well. One offhanded comment from Vanya leads to a bristle and what could best be described as an intended offense from Allison, and then an open insult from a thoroughly drunk Klaus, and the final game of Monopoly the Hargreeves children ever play ends in a screaming fight and an entrance from a rather unamused Reginald.

It appears that their younger selves were correct in their assumptions, because the game is immediately confiscated, and they're sent to their rooms to wait out a punishment that one Klaus Hargreeves never receives, because he's gone. Out the window, and it takes a long time and a lot of detective work to find him again, and by that time his life is a mess. But back then, Luther and Vanya are both locked in their rooms – there's really nothing else Reginald can think of for the two of them, and it's perhaps a good example of how far he, as a father figure, is from them. Allison and Diego are both given harder training, and though Allison rumors herself out of it, there's something to be said for how Reginald appears completely prepared to watch Diego drown when it doesn't seem he can make the entire set ten hours underwater.

There are times, over the next thirteen years, when a chance to play Monopoly arises, and it takes a minute for each of them to realize that they all have some aversion to it. Notable are instances when Diego is invited to the police academy's own Monopoly Nights, and he immediately turns the offer down. Vanya would pass the game in the store and shudder, though she knows that's completely ridiculous. Perhaps most interestingly, or so the tabloids would like to have anyone believe, is the time when Allison is set up to be playing monopoly with some friends in the opening scene of a movie she's staring in and simply won't do it. She uses her past to her advantage and makes up a fake story about being trapped on a giant Monopoly board with the rest of the Umbrella Academy once when they were kids, and even though it's among the most ridiculous things she's made up, people believe it.

Not that Five would know any of that, especially not when he's delirious from carrying all of them across seventeen years' worth of time, so it's completely reasonable when he turns to his siblings in their thirteen-year-old bodies, grins, and asks, "So, how about we discuss the end of the world over a game of Monopoly?"


End file.
